


Of Magic and Muggles

by JMilz



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Angst, Christmas Fluff, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,893
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28229973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JMilz/pseuds/JMilz
Summary: Recently divorced Dudley Dursley has been in a bit of a slump. It is only when he chooses to avoid an office Christmas party that he meets a quirky woman who gives him something he hasn't had in a long time: hope.
Relationships: Dudley Dursley/Marietta Edgecombe
Kudos: 5





	Of Magic and Muggles

Frigid raindrops kissed the glass of the wide, seventh-floor window. Towering over the small bakery across the street, the corporate building for Grunnings Drills was by far the largest building in the factory district, with tall smokestacks that puffed away from midnight to noon. Alas, the man through the window knew little of the smokestacks. In fact, he did not know much about the job at all.

His father, a man he had grown to uncannily resemble, insisted that the company hired him weeks after his thirty-first birthday. The sweet reprieve of nepotism proffered him the turn of luck that his wife had been begging for since he lost his job in Bristol, and as he expected, she had peppered him in smears of mauve lipstick as soon as she heard. Within days, they had bought a house in Surrey, and their children were enrolled in the private school he had gone to as a boy.

Back then, he was thought he was unstoppable. A six-figure salary was one of many assets of which he boasted, and while he once thought that was the most important of the lot, it no longer mattered in the slightest. Without his wife and his children, he was a shell of a man.

The heavy-handed knock on his door made him jump. Blinking away his tears, he cleared his throat and boomed, "Come in!"

A walrus-like mustache that matched his own in all ways but color peeked through the shadows of the hallway. "Mighty dark in here, Dudley." Pudgy, wrinkled fingers pawed at the wall until they found the light switch. "Aha! Much better!"

Dudley did not think it was better at all, but he kept that to himself.

"Haven't you put in enough hours today, son?" Vernon Dursley asked, waddling into the room. "Nearly ten of them, by my count!"

"I've got paperwork."

It was a lie.

"My boy the hard worker," Vernon doted, ruffling Dudley's greying hair. "Your mother would be so proud."

Petunia Dursley would, in fact, be proud, solely because she had put Dudley on a pedestal ever since he was just a boy. Dudley was not sure that his mother held him to the standard most mothers might hold a son, and unfortunately, he would never have the opportunity to ask her why. She had died in her sleep not long after his first child was born.

"Thanks, Dad."

"Well, I'll be seeing you tomorrow at the Christmas party, then?" Vernon asked, excitedly. "Nothing like a Grunnings party. The scotch flows like the Thames!"

He clapped his son on the back with a joyous "ha ha!" and slipped out the door, leaving Dudley alone in his grievous depression. The walls of his office were one of the last familiarities left in his life, and in no rush to return to his pathetic bachelor pad, he hunched over his desk and cried.

* * *

Grunnings had spent more on the annual Christmas party than it did on most of the floor workers' combined salary. The cafeteria was tacked with blinking lights and pinecone-laden garland, the tables each had a small, festive centerpiece of poinsettias and holly, and three towering trees were glittering under the soft lights of the room. It was much grander than the year before.

Dudley, who had never been popular with his coworkers, was skimming the room. Hours of consideration had gone into his attendance, and now that he was there, he was beginning to regret the decision he landed on. Men and women that did far more than him for far less money were helping themselves to the catered buffet _—_ an expensive spread featuring roast lamb and whatever a tofurkey was _—_ and as they passed him by, they made a point to shoot him a glare. Even their husbands and wives seemed to be disgruntled by his presence, and he could hardly blame them.

He had attended the Grunnings Christmas party the year before and he remembered getting the same looks, but with his pretty wife latched onto his arm, nothing could stand in his way of happiness. She was a glowing beacon not only of privilege and success, but of the fact that he was worthy of somebody's love. That was, he thought, something that nobody could take away from him.

"Mr. Dursley," a young American man said, reaching out to shake Dudley's hand. In his other hand was a glass of what Dudley thought might be scotch. "So good to see you here."

Dudley, who had seen the man before but did not remember his name, awkwardly replied, "Good to see you too, mate, good to see you too."

"Surely, you remember my wife, Nina?" The man beckoned a slim woman with a flute of champagne.

The brunette tucked herself into his side and smirked. "Mr. Dursley! Pleasure to see you again. Hunter talks about you all the time."

The man pinkened. "Not _all the time_ , of course. I just receive paperwork from you quite a lot and I always love that joke you have in your email signature about the baker and the shoehorn..."

Nina seemed to be looking for someone behind Dudley. She craned her neck and peeked past him as though she suspected that he was sneakily hiding another person behind his wide frame, and while Dudley suspected he knew what she was doing, he did not dare mention it before she did.

Unfortunately, she was quick to ask the looming question.

"Surely Loretta is here hiding somewhere? Or could she not make it?"

Dudley paled. He had expected someone to ask, but hearing her name was enough to make him want to go home—even if home was a one-bedroom flat.

"Loretta? She _—_ well, she and I recently separated, actually. I'm here alone, but my good ol' dad will be joining me shortly."

It felt strange to say aloud. He had only admitted it to his father.

"Oh! Oh lord, I'm terribly sorry _—_ "

Hunter's seized his wife by the forearm and started pulling her away, muttering something about embarrassing him.

"Hey! Hey, that's no way to treat a lady!" Dudley shouted after him, but the two of them had been swallowed by the crowd. Defeated, Dudley found a table and slumped into a chair.

* * *

The roar of the party was deafening. For nearly an hour, Dudley waited for his father to join him at his lonely table, but he never did. Instead, when Vernon Dursley finally made his entrance, he waddled around the room, laughing and drinking with sleazy investors and complimenting their far-too-young wives. The man had always been a schmoozer, and the older that Dudley grew, the less he respected him for it.

Fatigued, Dudley decided he was better off going back to his miserable flat. He said goodbye to no one as he shrugged on his jacket and made his way to the double doors. Nobody gave him a second glance.

Outside, it was quiet. Outside, he could hear his thoughts. 

Bathed in the semidarkness of a suburban winter night, he stopped in front of the carpark and fiddled with his keys, desperately trying not to be reminded of all the times Loretta scolded him for his ceaseless absentmindedness. However, where he parked was the same routine mystery as it was most days, and to find his money-pit of a vehicle, he depended on the loud honk that resounded when he tried locking it more times than necessary.

_"Can't you just remember where you parked the bloody thing? The levels are marked. How hard can it be, Dudley?"_

Unfortunately, his hands were shaking and the key fob slipped through his chubby fingers, tumbling to the ground. The metallic noise of brass against the pavement must have robbed him of his last bout of sanity, because it was with that that he collapsed onto the tarmac and buried his face in his hands.

If anyone saw him, he would look absolutely pathetic. Alas, he didn't care. His Loretta was gone. His children were gone. His house was gone. All he had left was his job and his BMW that had far too many miles on it, and he never wanted the thing to begin with. Loretta was the one that thought they needed the luxury car, and it was that fact that made it all the worse. The last remaining thing that was his had her written all over it.

_"I'm sorry, Dud. It just isn't working out."_

Dudley let out a dreadful sob. Such simple words had cut him so deeply.

"Sir? Sir, are you all right?"

With a mortified gasp, Dudley looked up. He had not heard any footsteps, and he most certainly did not expect a woman so beautiful to approach him in his given state.

"I _—_ I _—_ yes," he breathed, still trying to grasp her beauty and her mere presence. "I _—_ erm _—_ I'm great."

Slowly, he stood, realizing just how positively mad he must have seemed.

"Are you sure?" she asked, fixing her dress. It was olive green with patches of orange and violet _—_ not fashionable in any sense of the word, but it did not matter. Her eyes were intoxicatingly blue and her soft, plump frame was welcoming in a way he had never known. "You were crying."

She was not lithe and sharp like Loretta, but she was, in her own unique way, somehow prettier. With a noticeable scar on her cheek in the loose shape of a "K" and a dimple only on one side, she was nothing like the women he imagined himself with as a teenager. Yet, as he drank in her features, she was suddenly the only woman he could see himself with at all.

He wondered if he was hallucinating.

"Oh, that," he said, embarrassedly. "Right, well, er _—_ maybe I just drank too much."

She tilted her head. "Funny. You don't seem drunk to me."

"Okay, you're right. I'm not drunk." He sighed. "I _—_ erm _—_ I just had a divorce not that long ago and _—_ er _—_ just missing the kids a bit."

It might have been a lie a moment back, but he did not miss Loretta at all now. Not anymore.

The woman beamed and pushed her strawberry blonde curls behind her ear. "Oh, I love children. I can't have any of my own, though, I'm afraid."

It seemed like quite a personal thing to admit to a stranger, but perhaps it was because he had admitted something rather personal too.

"So do you _—_ uh _—_ do you work around here?"

"No. Do you?"

"Yes," he replied, gesturing the nearby building. "Right there at Grunnings."

"Well, I'm not sure what a Grunnings is, but you seem like a nice bloke. Maybe you'd like to go for a walk with me? It might _—_ erm _—_ maybe help you think about your situation a bit less?"

How she sounded just as nervous as he was, he did not know. With greying hair and a habit of crying in public, he was hardly the type to render women speechless.

"Erm _—_ yes. Yes, I'd really like that, I think," he managed, scratching the back of his head. "I'm Dudley, by the way. Dudley Dursley."

She smiled at him, flashing a cute crooked tooth that was stained with red lipstick. "Marietta. Marietta Edgecombe."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Marietta."

"It's nice to meet you too, Dudley Dursley."


End file.
